What now for England?

So the unthinkable has happened, England have been knocked out of
Euro 2016 by the footballing powerhouse of Iceland. Pundits and fans are
calling it England's most embarrassing result since the 1-0 defeat by
the part-time U.S.A team at the 1950 World Cup — England's right back
that day, Alf Ramsey, would go on to lead England to World Cup glory on
home soil in 1966. Ever since then it has been 60 years of hurt which
shows no signs of stopping.

It was not simply the defeat against
Iceland that was shocking and embarrassing, it was the manner of it. Roy
Hodgson's side were outthought and, most unforgivably, outfought in a
match against a team who has a part time dentist as one of their
managers.

Firstly congratulations must be given to Iceland. They
were magnificent and wanted it more than England and thus thoroughly
deserve to face France in the quarter final. However, everybody knows
that this should have been England's night.

England hate to be
favourites, we saw in the friendly victory against Germany back in March
that they much prefer to be the underdog. That performance was full of
brightness and hope for the future as England's players played without
the heavy chains that usually seem to weigh them down during
international matches. Monday's defeat to Iceland on the other hand was
the complete opposite and arguably a return to the norm. It was almost
as if England had put straitjackets on before the game rather than their
overpriced kit (hopeful England fans had to fork out £50 for a shirt
that was only relevant for two weeks).

It was not only the players that crumbled under pressure —
it was the management also. Roy Hodgson, who was the highest paid
international manager in the world, was questioned for making six
changes for the final group match against Slovakia (0-0). However, Italy
proved in their 2-0 victory over highly-fancied Spain earlier in the
day that making changes (Conte made eight) and resting players for that
final group game, with qualification already pretty much assured, can
freshen up your better players for the bigger game.

Whilst you can
sometimes justify changes, the England manager has come into this
tournament without knowing his best formation, let alone his best team —
absolutely unjustifiable when you have had so long to prepare. Hodgson
ended up shoehorning players into positions they were not comfortable
with (Daniel Sturridge playing right wing epitomises this) and opted to
play his best players rather than his best team — there is a big difference.

This
arguably goes all the way back to the 23-man squad selection, which now
seems a long time ago. Hodgson picked no wingers and five attacking
midfielders so, when things were not going right and England wanted to
change their style — they couldn't as there was nobody on the bench who could provide a different option.

Continuing
with the theme of squad selection, despite Hodgson saying he would pick
players on form, he fell into the trap of previous England managers by
displaying incredibly questionable loyalty to some players. Jack
Wilshere played a mere 141 minutes of football for Arsenal this season
thanks to injury yet Hodgson still picked him ahead of Leicester's
title-winning Danny Drinkwater. Raheem Sterling is another one, a player
who has been out of sorts for Manchester City this season was given a
big role in this England squad but he failed to live up to expectation.
Ross Barkley, Gary Cahill — the list goes on.

Hodgson also seemed
out of his depth with his substitutions. England were 2-1 down for most
of the game yet it took the manager until the 85th minute to bring
Marcus Rashford into a game that was screaming for him. The Manchester
United forward did more in his small cameo appearance than anybody else
did in the entire 90 minutes with his direct running causing problems
for Iceland's backline. This was not the first time in this tournament
that his substitutions have been questioned.

After the defeat,
Hodgson's position became untenable and he resigned from his position in
a press conference minutes after the final whistle. However, that press
conference was not the last we would hear of Hodgson. Despite being
technically unemployed, he was called to another meeting with the media
the day after the match, during which he seemed to be rather angry that
he was pretty much forced to attend — despite no longer being in charge of the national team.

While
Hodgson's outbursts were the highlight of this most recent press
conference, it was comments by FA CEO Glenn Martin that were of most
concern. Mr Martin told of the disappointment in the dressing room after
the nightmare against Iceland. The question here is: why was an FA suit
in a place that should be reserved only for players, management and
coaching staff?

However, there was worse to come from the CEO. Two
minutes after saying he was 'no football expert' he declared that he
would be on the panel of people tasked with choosing the next England
manager. This pretty much sums up what is wrong with English football.

Probably
the only benefit of England getting embarrassed at a World Cup or Euros
is that we get to hear the now somewhat traditional ranting of
outspoken former winger Chris Waddle on the radio.

In this year's
rant he said it was time for England to 'stop making excuses' and
accused the FA and England management of 'always preparing a team for
the next tournament rather than the current one'. As always, the former
Tottenham man was right, England must stop making excuses for
themselves, keeping with the status quo and then expecting it to be
different next time. If you use the same ingredients, you will get the
same dish.

So how do England go forward from here? A new manager
for a start. The FA have said they are looking for the 'best man for the
job' so are therefore not ruling out foreign candidates. Personally I
am not a fan of foreign managers at national level, the national team is
about testing your country's best players and staff against the world
so to have a foreign manager defeats the object of international
football. Additionally, we have gone down this route before with
likeable Swede Sven-Goran Eriksson and generalissimo Fabio Capello, who I
am sure Russian fans remember with great fondness. We paid these men an
absolute fortune but both of them have been consigned to the books of
failure.

Current England U21 manager Gareth Southgate is the
favourite for the job at the moment. The argument being that he knows
the next generation of players coming through and has done well with
that youth team and recently won the Toulon Tournament. The fact that he
is a likeable and seemingly an unchallenging man also makes him ideal
for the FA who love to stick to their own. Personally I would prefer him
to stay with the U21s and continue his good work rather than take the
risk of stepping up to the senior team.

Former manager Glenn
Hoddle has also been mentioned, he was sacked from the England job in
1999 after ill-advised comments about disabled people. However, fans and
pundits still see him as some kind of saviour. Hoddle seems to have
good ideas but I am not sure he should be the manager. Despite this I
think it would be a good ideal to give him a coaching or development
role as he has a good track record in developing young players.

Before
Roy Hodgson was appointed four years ago, Alan Shearer went to the FA
and declared his interest in the England job. The FA turned him down as
due to lack of experience to which Shearer replied ‘’you have hired
experienced men before and paid them an absolute fortune and done
terribly, I cannot do any worse than that’’.

I like the idea of
Shearer, he tells it like it is and has great experience of tournament
football, plus he knows the pressure of playing for England in modern
times — especially the media hype that surrounds the national team. As
he himself said, they have paid fortunes to previous managers and got
nowhere, he cannot do any worse.

Unfortunately I think he has too much character for the men in suits at the FA who prefer a yes man who does what they say.

There
seem to be no obvious candidates available and, with a man who admits
he is 'not a football expert' on the panel to choose the next England
manager, there is little hope that we will make a good appointment.

As
touched upon previously, it is the system that is wrong. In England
people think the Premier League is the be all and end all — I am a rare exception to this and believe it is killing the beautiful game.

When
August comes around and we see the likes of Mourinho, Guardiola, Conte
and Klopp in Premier League hot seats, we will forget about this
international debacle.

That is the problem, we are totally
reliant on foreign players and managers who make the league the exciting
spectacle it is. Clubs prefer to pay incredibly average foreign players
a lot of money rather than invest in youth talent. This of course means
the pool of good, young players for the national team diminishes.
Perhaps our recent Brexit will be a good thing for English football as
these average foreigners will have to apply for work permits which they
will hopefully fail to receive.

I said before the tournament that however England do in this tournament there will be complaints —
generally rather unjustifiable ones. However, on this occasion it will
be hard to disagree with many of them as English football is now at rock
bottom and experiencing its most embarrassing moment for 66 years.
England were knocked out of Euro 2016 by a country with more volcanoes
than professional footballers. It also does not help that there is a
much derided British supermarket called Iceland — imagine if Russia were beaten by a country called Pyaterochka...

Outgoing
FA Chairman Greg Dyke said back in September 2013 (when he revealed his
master plan for the revival of English football) that England should be
getting to the semi-finals of Euro 2020 and aiming to win the 2022
World Cup in Qatar. As we say in England, there is more chance of pigs
flying than that happening.